Online Services

Zoom Service on Sunday Afternoon at 5.00pm

Do join Rev Prebendary Nicholas Lowton at 5pm this Sunday for a service of Evening Prayer.

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81409048217

This link will also provide access to the Zoom  service on Sunday 7 February 2021 at 5.00pm.  An Order of Service can be found below.

Deanery Gathering & Synod 14th January 7.30pm

Abbeydore Deanery Leads the Way.

Abbeydore Deanery Synod voted without objection to approve proposals to change the way that mission and ministry are delivered. The Deanery will become a Group Ministry so that clergy can work in all parts of the Deanery. All the parishes will form a Joint Council to share with the PCCs responsibility for growth. Later this year the Deanery will become four Mission Communities, each led by a team of lay people and a Rural Pioneer Priest. During the next six months each PCC will decide which other parishes they would like to work with to form a cluster, so that by September 2021 the boundaries of each of the four Mission Communities are agreed.

During 2021 Hilary Morgan of the Cagebrook group of parishes and Nicholas Lowton of the Black Mountains Group, will retire. A new Rural Pioneer Priest will be recruited for the Deanery, and live in the Mission Community based on the Cagebrook Group, we hope by the autumn.

As well as oversight for a Mission Community, each Rural Pioneer Priest will look after a specific area of mission across the Deanery, such as children and young people or lay training.

For any more information please contact Anne Lloyd abbeydoredmc@gmail.com 07432 873422.

Rev Mark Godson, wrote the following, which captures the opportunities we have to make a difference through mission & ministry here.

When the song of the rural dean is stilled,
When the Zoom in the clouds is gone,
When the co-ordinator and the synod reps are home,
When the clergy are back with their flocks,
The work of a Deanery begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

Looking ahead to Lent

Please get in touch and let us know what you’d like us to bring you for Lent.

Discussion?
Discovering new ways to pray?
Support for anxiety/depression?
Mindfulness?
…?
You can just reply to abbeydoredmc@gmail.com to let us know, chat to your Rural Pioneer Priest or let us know during Coffee at 11 on Sundays.

Pause and pray at Midday

Each day during lockdown…and maybe beyond?

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

18 to 23 January and 25 January at 8.00pm, Sunday 24th at 3.00pm

Everyone is welcome to join Christians from across the Golden Valley for these prayer vigils that will be led by people from the Baptist, C of E, Methodist and RC churches. These meditations are offered by Churches Together in Ewyas Harold.

The Sisters of Grandchamp have offered us something uniquely precious: an opportunity to engage with a form of prayer that is both very ancient and yet at the same time so apposite for our times. The ancient rhythm of prayer found in many religious orders and their traditions teach us that when we pray, we pray not just on our own or with those who share the same physical space, but with the whole Church, the Body of Christ, of Christians in other places and in different times.

This rhythm of prayer, with its traditional forms of structure, hymns and psalms and perhaps most importantly, silence, might well be an important gift from the ancient Church to the Church of today struggling with pandemics and lockdowns and more widely with some of the serious challenges that our world faces, most particularly climate change, racism and poverty. This tradition of prayer and spirituality, despite the things that hurt and separate us, invites us into shared prayer and silence together.

Surely a most precious gift in troubled times. Come with us this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and enter into a place of community and blessing. Simply “be” in this place and be carried by the prayer and the reality that it is God, in Christ and through the Holy Spirit, who carries us and accompanies us. Always.

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89917867306?pwd=RWk3ODZoWGpSRHU0QldXalg3a2Jtdz09
Meeting ID: 899 1786 7306
Passcode: 750526

Clare Wichbold MBE

‘Stories from the suffrage movement in Herefordshire’
Wednesday 20 January. Talk started at 7.00pm

Last month we screened local historian David Whitehead’s fascinating lecture on Sir George Gilbert Scott and the restoration of Moccas Church. This month we’ll be exploring the surprising stories of the suffrage movement in Herefordshire.

Clare Wichbold MBE gave a lively and moving account of the early efforts of Herefordians, both male and female, to bring about the right for women to vote. Historically seen as something of a backwater in the fight for the vote, Clare has discovered that Herefordshire’s role in the national suffrage story was far more significant than previously thought…

This 40 minute illustrated lecture was filmed at Moccas Church last October. We will be showing it using Zoom, and Clare was available for a Q&A session afterwards. 

Judy’s reflection includes this poem, One Day…

One day, we’ll step out of doors,

walk down the street, meet our friends,

share a cup of coffee and chocolate cake.

One day we’ll play football, build a fire,

roast potatoes, sing a shanty, climb a

mountain. We’ll open wide church doors.

One day we’ll cry for the lost,

remember the stillness and separation

with due respect, carry the candle

of calm into our daily lives, watch with joy,

as petals open, birds build their nests,

bumble bees fly from flower to flower.

We’ll remember to stop, be still,

cherish birdsong and new blossom.

We’ll cook and converse with new care,

study and travel with eyes open.

We’ll pray and praise with new vigour.

We’ll break bread with fresh delight.

We’ll message, email and zoom with

new respect, with love and diligence.

Together with friend and stranger,

we’ll know our deep humanity, our

links across waves and mountain.

We’ll hold hands and share vision.

One day we’ll remember and share,

carry the candle of calm into daily life,

respect the stranger, cry for the lost.

One day we’ll celebrate our whole world.

Judy Dinnen

Our churches are open for private prayer

If you feel it is safe for you to visit, it could become part of your daily exercise routine. With the new Covid-19 variant being more highly transmissible, could we encourage you to be more vigilant in sanitising and refraining from coming into contact with any surfaces within the buildings.

In particular, on exiting church and having to close an inner door you should find a sanitising bottle available to use in each porch so that if traces of the virus were on a handle you would be able to clean immediately after use. Please remember to wear a face mask.

CHURCHES – LOCATION AND OPENING TIMES

Click OUR LOCATIONS to see a carousel in alphabetical order. You can see more churches using the navigation dots, or swipe. Clicking a picture will show it as a pop-up. Click a panel and you’ll be taken to the church on the map below. Click  a map icon or MORE INFORMATION for the church’s web page.